Jedi Master Tyan Izban pulled out her datapad to check the daily Holonet news. Price of Zaltin bacta gone up. Price of R1 astromech droids gone down. New model of blaster released. Skimming through the information, she found no news of the situation on Shandav.

Good, she thought. Things are already bad enough. We don't need hundreds of humans landing there and launching a war.

The other Jedi Master on this mission, Qui-Gon Jinn, appeared at the door to her cabin together with his Padawan. "Found anything?" he asked her.

"No," she replied. "Force knows the problems we will have if there was any news of Shandav."

"Problems would be a mild way to put it," Qui-Gon said, a hint of a smile on his face.

"All right, unmitigated disaster, if you insist that I be more specific," Tyan said.

"I do," Qui-Gon replied jokingly.

"Fine, then. Total chaos, terrible catastrophe..."

Obi-Wan smiled as he listened to the banter between the two Jedi. Despite his smile, however, he had a bad feeling about this mission. There was something wrong, something terribly important that they had overlooked.

Tyan's eleven-year-old Padawan, Jan Majere, joined them. "The pilot says we'll be exiting hyperspace in about four standard minutes," she informed them.

"Thank you, Jan," Tyan said.

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Back in their temporary quarters aboard the shuttle, Obi-Wan told his Master about the feeling he had about the mission.

"I know," Qui-Gon said. "I sense it too. I've tried meditating, but I can't pinpoint precisely what it is that we missed."

Obi-Wan sighed in frustration. He had hoped that Qui-Gon would know. He knew it was something of the utmost importance that could affect the mission, but he just couldn't figure out what it was.

Fifteen standard minutes later, the four Jedi exited the shuttle. Their boots made only faint tracks on the wet, springy moss-covered ground of Shandav.

Tyan didn't understand why her perception of the danger differed from Jan's, but she had all senses on alert anyway, and had told Jan to do the same. She preferred to be safe than sorry.

The representatives of Shandav's native race, the Drancors, stood at the edge of the clearing under some tall trees. They bore little resemblance to humans. Their long, snake-like bodies were covered with black and white scales, with a wide band of gray just under their heads.

Qui-Gon felt intense anger, outrage, hate and revulsion emanate from the Drancors as soon as they had stepped out of the shuttle, stronger than any emotion he had sensed before. Years of Jedi training and experience allowed the Jedi Masters to keep their faces impassive, but their Padawans had no such advantage. Obi-Wan's steps faltered and Jan flinched. Noticing the Drancors staring at them, Obi-Wan strengthened his shields with his best effort. Jan had a bit more trouble with shielding, so Tyan helped her.

"Welcome to Ssshhhandavvv," the largest Drancor hissed, his forked tongue distorting the words. "I am Ssthith, the leader of the Drancorsss. We hope that thisss issssue of the human workersss will be ssswiftly cleared up." Ssthith spat the word 'human' like a swear word. "I can assssure you that the workersss are all legal. The report made by the human worker lassst week isss entirely inaccurate."

"We will see for ourselves," Tyan said cautiously, not wanting to appear biased towards either side.

"We're sorry, but we must meet them," Tyan said. "Only then can we make a fair decision."

The negative feelings toward the Jedi intensified. "No. The humansss are of no importanccce."

"We're afraid we must insist," Qui-Gon said firmly.

Another Drancor with blood-red eyes spoke up, hissing in an I-told-you-so tone. Her native language emerged more smoothly from her black mouth than the Basic words had from Ssthith's.

Ssthith jerked his head in seeming disagreement and replied. The red-eyed Drancor twitched her white-tipped tail and argued back angrily. Qui-Gon watched them with an uneasy feeling at the back of his mind. Finally, Ssthith seemed to give in and gave the four Drancors wearing weapons belts a look.

In a moment of clarity, Qui-Gon realized what it was that they had overlooked.

The Force flared a warning. The Jedi reacted instantly, lightsabers humming as they deflected the stun shots. Tyan reached out and yanked the blasters out of the hands of the Drancor guards. She and Jan destroyed the weapons with two swift strokes of their sabers.

With a sick sucking sound, the hands of the guards disappeared back into the gray area of their chests.

"Explain the meaning of this," Qui-Gon demanded, his lightsaber still activated. He was taking no chances.

The Drancors glared at them. "Jedi," the red-eyed one spat. "You pretend to be the guardiansss of peaccce and jusssticcce in the galaxxxy. Yet you send humansss to sssettle a conflict between usss and the human workersss. You land here and insssissst on ssseeing the worthlessss human represssentativesss, even after we tell you that they are unimportant. It isss obviousss that you are prejudiccced againssst usss. We cannot hope for a fair resssolution if you humansss are to be the mediatorsss."

Obi-Wan was incredulous. The Drancors were accusing them of prejudice when they themselves were the ones who were bigoted!

"Ssso," she continued, "we have decccided to punissshhh you." She hissed loudly.

"Your - " Qui-Gon began, but was interrupted by more stun bolts from behind them. He whirled around, deflecting the barrage of blaster fire. There were about twenty Drancors under the cover of the trees. "Call them off!" he snapped at the Drancors whom the Jedi had unwisely left behind them.

The Force warned them of the attack a split second earlier. Occupied with deflecting blaster shots, they were unable to evade the Drancors' hands which had snaked out of the gray chests and wrapped themselves around the Jedi's necks. The blaster fire ceased. Unwilling to injure the Drancors, Qui-Gon and Tyan lowered their lightsabers and extinguished them. Their Padawans followed their example.

On an unseen cue, all the Drancors' hands tightened. The Jedi had to struggle to breathe. Two Drancors slithered forward and relieved them of their sabers.

"Stop this immediately," Tyan choked out, bringing the Force to bear on the Drancors. It had no effect on them.

Ssthith chuckled, a low, gravelly sound. "Your Forccce cannot help you. We are immune to Forccce sssuggessstions, asss you havvve found out. And why ssshould we ssstop, human? We are sssimply doing the galaxxxy a favvvor by getting rid of you. On second thought... Thriss," he said to the red-eyed Drancor in Basic, obviously hoping to frighten them, "bring them to the interrogation cell." His acid-green eyes gleamed with malice.

"You are mistaken," Tyan rasped out. "I am not a human."

"Liar," Ssthith said dismissively.

Tyan changed into a crystal snake and slid out of the Drancor's grip. She changed back into her natural form and said, "I am a Shi'ido. I agree with you that humans should not exist. They are one of the most disgusting species in the galaxy. The Jedi did not send these humans to Shandav. They decided to come here against the orders of the Jedi Council, our ruling body. I have only pr

Here's a short post (I have limited time and a sister loudly singing Westlife songs in the next room, so do please forgive me if you don't like short posts ).

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Qui-Gon glanced at Jan and Obi-Wan. Her face was pale and expressionless, Obi-Wan's carried a stunned look. He himself felt sick. He never would have thought Tyan harbored anti-human sentiments.

He reached out with the Force, probing Tyan, wanting to find something, anything, that indicated that it was all a ruse, that she didn't really mean what she had said.

All he got was her tight mental shields.

"How can we be sssure that you are telling the truth?" Ssthith asked suspiciously.

Tyan eyed him with a steady gaze. "You can't. You just have to take my word for it."

There was a moment of silence as Ssthith pondered her offer. "Vvvery well," he said finally. "You will come with usss now, and tell usss what methodsss you havvve that you are ssso confident of being able to kill all the humansss on Ssshhhandavvv."

"No," Tyan snapped. "I will not. I may be grateful to you for your help, but there is a limit to what I am willing to do for you. I am not a human, for you to command. I am a non-human, which means I am your equal. I will not allow you to order me around like a servant. I will divulge that information to you in my own time, and not when you demand it."

Ssthith glared daggers at her, but the prospect of no humans left on the entire planet was too tempting to turn down. "Fine," he hissed. "Will you accept temporary quarters in our city?"

"Do you not trust me that you have to keep me in your city, under the watchful eyes of your people?" Tyan retorted. "I will remain in my shuttle." She turned around and stalked back into the shuttle.

Ssthith's black tail twitched angrily at the abrupt dismissal. He hissed at the guards. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Jan were hauled away to a dull gray building a short distance away from the landing pad.

The three Jedi were shoved into a small dank cell. The door clanged shut and the four guards outside were joined by six more.

"This is crazy," Obi-Wan said, his voice caught halfway between anger and sorrow. "A straightforward mission to check if a claim of slavery on a Republic world is true, and it ends up with us being unreasonably accused of bias and thrown into prison, and a fellow Jedi..." he trailed off as he glanced at Jan.

She was curled up in a corner, her forehead resting on her knees. Jan had been Tyan's Padawan for only a month. This was her first mission. Qui-Gon couldn't imagine what it what it must be like. To have someone take you as a Padawan, working together to strengthen the Master/ Padawan bond, developing trust in her, then to have that trust shattered a month later when you find out that she hates all of your species and wants to kill you.

"Jan..."

"I never knew," she said softly, her voice choked with tears. "I never thought that she might hate..." Her sentence ended in a muffled sob.

Obi-Wan was at a loss. He had never been good at communicating with people. He depended on Qui-Gon to do that on their missions.

Qui-Gon went over to Jan, not saying anything. He just sat down beside her on the damp floor and hugged her tightly as she sobbed.